Henry steixway



UNITED STATES PATENTV OFFICE.

HENRY STEINXVAY, OF NEW' YORK, N. Y.

GRAND PIANO.

Specification of Letters Patent No.

I'o all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, HENRY STEINWAY, of the city, county, and State of New York, have invented a new and useful Improvement in Grand Pianofortes; and I do here by declare that the following is a full, clear, and exact description of the same, reference being had to the accompanying drawing, forming part of this specification', in which- Figure l is a plan of a grand piano-forte with my improvement, having the cover removed to show the interior. F ig. 2 is a longitudinal vertical section of the same.

Similar letters of reference indicate corresponding parts in both figures.

In the construction of square piano-fortes overstringing, that is to say the arrangement of the strings of a number of the lower notes in a tier above the others, has been adopted quite commonly and with great advantage for the purposes of using larger strings, and a substantially similar system of Stringing has been applied to upright piano-fortes; but owing to the form of the case and arrangement of the key board and action of grand piano-fortes some difficulties have seemed to present themselves in the way of applying the system to them, and though some attempts may have been made in that direction I have after much research failed to nd that an overstrung grandpiano has, prior to the date of my present invention, ever been constructed.

My present invention consists in a certain arrangement of the strings of a grand pianoforte in two tiers whereby I am enabled not only to obtain all the results obtained in pianofortes of other forms by overstringing, but am enabled to bring the bridges nearer to the middle of the sound board than they are in any other grand piano-forte.

To enable others to make and use my invention I will proceed to describe its construction and operation.

A represents the case which may be of the same size and form horizontally as the case of grand pianos heretofore constructed but a trifle deeper.

B C D E is an iron frame of which the part B, constitutes the hitch plate, and is connected with the part C, which supports the timing block F, by means of the bars D, D, E, E, which constitute braces parallel with the strings. G is the sound board occupying the entire portion of the case in rear of the action. The red line a, a, in Fig. l,

26,532, dated December 20, 1859.

represents the hammer line which is parallel or very nearly so with the front of the instrument as is usual in grand piano-fortes.

I), ZJ, are the strings of the upper tier in which I propose generally to include all the covered strings, and c, c, are the strings of the lower tier. About half of the strings c, c, commencing with the shortest are arranged at right angles, or thereabout, to the front of the instrument and to the hammer line, but the other half of the said strings, though having their tuning pins (l, (Z, in about the same positions as those of the corresponding strings in other grand pianofortes have their rear ends, which are attached to the hitch plate B, by the hitch pins c, e, set farther apart so that the rear end of the longest of the said strings comes very much nearer to the straight left hand side ot' the case than the front end, and the said string and the adjacent shorter ones form angles of considerable Obliquity to the hammer line. By this arrangement of the over strings c, c, the portion of the bridge g, upon which the said strings rest is brought much nearer to the middle of the sound board than in other grand piano-fortes, which is an obvious advantage. The over strings 7 o, b, are also arranged at an oblique angle to the front of the instrument and to the hammer line, but their obliquity is in an opposite direction to the Obliquity of the strings c, c, as shown in Fig. l, so that they cross over the latter. The said strings b, b, are attached to tuning pins f, f, which are screwed into a suitably elevated portion of tuning block, but which occupy the same positions, horizont-ally considered, as the tuning pins of the corresponding strings of other grand pianofortes, except that the tuning pin of the shortest of the said strings, and the tuning pin (Z, of the longest of the strings c, c, are set further apart than the corresponding pins of an ordinary grand piano-forte, as shown in Fig. l, in order that there may be the same or nearly the same horizontal distance between those two strings at the hammer line that there is between the other strings, and that the same horizontal Ydistances may be preserved between the strings throughout the whole of the scale so that no change in the construction of the grand action is required. The distance between the strings Z), 7), is increased toward their rear ends by the arrangement of their hitch pins h, It, fart-her apart than their tuning pins. The said hitch pins h, h, are in an upvvardly projecting portion z', of the hitch plate, and the bridge j, Which supports the said strings on the sound board, is arranged in an opening c, la, provided for it in the hitch plate. By the oblique arrangement of the strings Z2, b, relatively to the front of the instrument and to the hammer line, the bridge y', upon which they rest is brought into the middle of the sound board, instead of close to one edge thereof, as in other grand piano-fortes, and by suitable relative obliquities of the strings ZJ, b, and the longer of the strings c, c, the longest one of the strings 0, o, and the shortest one of those Z), b, Which are the next strings in 

